Saturday, 30 June 2012

Two months ago, the Audi R8 E-Tron was caught at the Nürburgring, getting its gumption up for what everyone has come to consider The Obligatory Timed Lap of Destiny. The lap has been completed with Markus Winkelhock at the wheel, and the result is a world record for a series production electric car: eight minutes and 9.099 seconds. If you believe in Wikipedia's list of 'Ring lap times, that puts the R8 E-Tron with its 375 horsepower and stupefying torque 25 seconds behind the R8 V10, five seconds adrift of the eight-cylinder R8, and in the same company as the Audi RS4 and previous generation BMW M6.

If we ignore the fact that you can't buy an R8 E-Tron yet, the hot lap car "corresponds in every detail" to the one you will be able to buy at the end of this year. Well, not exactly: customer cars will be speed-limited to 200 kph (125 mph), but for the 'Ring run, the limiter was raised to 250 kph. More practical numbers for civilian jaunts are the 0-to-62 mph time of 4.6 seconds and a 134-mile range when fully charged.

More important to all of us will be the video footage of its triumph, which we hope to see very soon. In the meantime, there's the obligatory press release of destiny below.